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Reproduced below is German
Chief of Staff
Paul von Hindenburg's account
of the opening of the great German Spring Offensive of 1918.

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Opening on 21 March it was
designed to knock the British and French out of the war (possibly by the
expedient of separating their forces and communication) before sufficient
U.S. forces could arrive in France to decisively tip the scales in favour of
the Allies.

The German Army made
enormous breakthrough gains against the British Fifth Army at the Somme and
indeed looked set to triumph over the Allies; with the aid of French
reserves however the German advance was finally halted in early April.

Paul von Hindenburg on
the Opening of the German Spring Offensive, 21 March 1918

Shortly before we left Spa
His Majesty issued the Order for the first great battle.

I will quote the material
portion of this order in full to save a detailed description of our plans.
By way of explanation I may remark that the preparations for the great
battle are indicated by the rubric "Michael," and that the day and hour of
the attack were only inserted when we knew for certain that our preparations
were complete.

Main Headquarters
10.3.18

By His Majesty's
Orders:

1. The Michael attack
will take place on the 21.3. The first attack on the enemy's lines
is fixed for 9.40 a.m.

2. The first great
tactical objective of the Crown Prince Rupprecht's Army Group is to cut
off the English in the Cambrai salient and reach the line Croisilles
(southeast of Arras)-Bapaume-Peronne. If the attack of the right
wing (Seventeenth Army) proceeds favourably, this army is to press on
beyond Croisilles.

The further task of
this Army Group is to push forward in the general direction of
Arras-Albert, keep its left wing on the Somme at Peronne, and
intensifying its pressure on the right wing compel the retirement of the
English front facing the Sixth Army also, and release further German
troops from trench warfare for the general advance.

3. The German Crown
Prince's Army Group will first gain the line of the Somme south of the
Omignon stream (this flows into the Somme south of Peronne) and the
Crozat Canal (west of La Pere). By pushing on rapidly the
Eighteenth Army (right wing of the Crown Prince's Army Group) is to
secure the crossing of the Somme and the Canal.

The tension in which we had
left Spa in the evening of March 18th had increased as we arrived at our new
headquarters at Avesnes.

The beautiful bright
weather of early spring which we had been enjoying had changed.
Violent rainstorms swept over the country. They did full justice to
the nickname which the French had given to Avesnes and its neighbourhood.

In themselves clouds and
rain were by no means unwelcome to us in these days. They would
probably shroud our final preparations. But had we really any grounds
for hoping that the enemy had not got wind of what we were about?

Here and there the hostile
artillery had been particularly wide-awake and lively. But the firing
had then died down. From time to time enemy airmen at night had tried
to observe the most important of our roads with the help of light-balls and
turned their machine-guns on all suspected movements.

But all this supplied no
definite data on which to answer the question: "Can our surprise succeed?"

The reinforcements
earmarked for the attack entered the assembly trenches in the final few
nights; the last trench-mortars and batteries were brought up. The
enemy did not interfere to any appreciable extent!

At different points parties
volunteered to drag heavy guns right up to our wire and there conceal them
in shell-holes. We believed that we ought to be venturesome if we
could thereby guarantee that the attacking infantry should have artillery
support in their passage through the whole enemy defensive system. No
hostile counter-measures hindered this preparatory work.

The weather was stormy and
rainy almost the whole day on March 20th. The prospects for the 21st
were uncertain. Local mist was probable. But at midday we
decided definitely that the battle should begin in the morning of the
following day.

The early morning hours of
March 21st found the whole of Northern France, from the coast to the Aisne,
shrouded in mist. The higher the sun mounted into the sky the thicker
the fog became. At times it limited the range of vision to a few
yards.

Even the sound waves seemed
to be absorbed in the grey veil. In Avesnes we could only hear a
distant indefinite roll of thunder coming from the battlefield, on which
thousands of guns of every calibre had been belching forth fury since the
early morning.

Unseeing and itself unseen,
our artillery had proceeded with its work. It was only our
conscientious preparation which offered any guarantee that our batteries
were being really effective. The enemy's reply was local, fitful and
of varying violence. It looked as if he were groping about for an
unseen enemy rather than systematically fighting a troublesome foe.

It was therefore still
uncertain whether the English were not fully prepared with their defence and
expecting our attack. The veil which hid everything did not lift.

About 10 a.m. our brave
infantry advanced into the very heart of it. At first we received only
vague reports, recitals of objectives reached, contradictions of previous
reports, recalls.

It was only gradually that
the atmosphere of uncertainty cleared and we were in a position to realise
that we had broken through the enemy's first line at all points. About
midday the mist began to dissolve and the sun to triumph.

By the evening hours we
were able to piece together a definite picture of what had been
accomplished. The armies on the right wing and the centre of our
battle front were to all intents and purposes held up in front of the
enemy's second position.

The army on the left had
made immense progress beyond St. Quentin. There was no doubt that the
right wing was faced with the stoutest opposition.

The English had suspected
the danger which was threatening them from the north and brought up all
their available reserves to meet it. On the other hand the left wing
had led relatively the easiest task, apparently as the result of a wholesale
surprise.

In the north our losses had
been larger than we expected; otherwise they were in accordance with
anticipation.

The results of the day
seemed to me satisfactory. Such was also the opinion of the General
Staff officers who had followed the troops and were now returning from the
battlefield.

Yet only the second day
could show whether our attack would now share the fate of all those which
the enemy had made upon us for years, the fate of finding itself held up
after the first victorious breakthrough.

The evening of the second
day saw our right wing in possession of the second enemy position. Our
centre had even captured the third enemy line, while the army on the left
wing was in full career and now miles away to the west.

Hundreds of enemy guns,
enormous masses of ammunition and other booty of all kinds were lying behind
our lines. Long columns of prisoners were marching eastwards.

The destruction of the
English troops in the Cambrai salient could not be achieved, however, as,
contrary to our expectations, our right wing had not pushed on far and
quickly enough.

The third day of the battle
made no change in the previous impressions of the course of events; the
heaviest fighting was on our right wing, where the English defended
themselves with the greatest obstinacy and were still maintaining themselves
in their third line.

On the other hand we had
gained more ground in our centre and also on the left wing. This day
the Somme had been reached south of Peronne, and indeed crossed at one
point.

In view of the brilliant
sweep of our attack to the west, a sweep which put into the shade everything
that had been seen on the Western Front for years, it seemed to me that an
advance on Amiens was feasible.

Amiens was the nodal point
of the most important railway connections between the two war zones of
Central and Northern France (the latter being mainly the English sphere of
operations) which had the line of the Somme as a definite boundary.

The town was thus of very
great strategic importance. If it fell into our hands, or even if we
succeeded in getting the town and its neighbourhood under effective
artillery fire, the enemy's field of operations would be cleft in twain and
the tactical breakthrough would be converted into a strategical wedge, with
England on one side and France on the other.

It was possible that the
strategic and political interests of the two countries might drift apart as
the result of such a success. We will call these interests by the
names of Calais and Paris. So forward against Amiens!

We did indeed go forward,
and with giant strides. And yet it was not quick enough for active
imaginations and glowing wishes. For we had to fear that the enemy
also would realise the peril in which he now stood, and would do everything
in his power to avert it. English reserves from the northern wing,
French troops drawn from the whole of Central France were hastening to
Amiens.

The evening of the fourth
day saw Bapaume in our hands. Peronne and the line of the Somme south
of it was already well behind our leading divisions.

We were once more treading
the old Somme battlefield. For many of our men it was rich in proud,
if serious memories, and for all who saw it for the first time it spoke
straight to the heart with its millions of shell-holes, its confused medley
of crumbling and overgrown trenches, the majestic silence of its desolate
wastes and its thousands of graves.

Whole sections of the
English front had been utterly routed and were retiring, apparently out of
hand, in the direction of Amiens. It was the progress of the army on
our right wing which was first held up.

To get the battle going
again at this point we attacked the hills east of Arras. The attempt
only partially succeeded, and the action was broken off.

Meanwhile our centre had
captured Albert. On the seventh day our left wing, guarding against
French attacks from the south, pressed forward through Roye to Montdidier.

The decision was therefore
to he sought more and more in the direction of Amiens. But here also
we found the resistance stiffening, and our advance became slower and
slower.

The hopes and wishes which
had soared beyond Amiens had to be recalled. Facts must be treated as
facts. Human achievements are never more than patchwork.
Favourable opportunities had been neglected or had not always been exploited
with the same energy, even where a splendid goal was beckoning.

We ought to have shouted
into the ear of every single man: "Press on to Amiens. Put in your
last ounce. Perhaps Amiens means decisive victory. Capture
Villers-Bretonneux whatever happens, so that from its heights we can command
Amiens with masses of our heavy artillery!"

It was in vain; our
strength was exhausted.

The enemy fully realised
what the loss of Villers-Bretonneux would mean to him. He threw
against our advancing columns all the troops he could lay hands on.
The French appeared, and with their massed attacks and skilful artillery
saved the situation for their Allies and themselves.

With us human nature was
urgently voicing its claims. We had to take breath. The infantry
needed rest and the artillery ammunition.

It was lucky for us that we
were able to live to a certain extent on the supplies of the beaten foe;
otherwise we should not even have been able to cross the Somme, for the
shattered roads in the wide shell-hole area of the first enemy position
could only have been made available after days of work.

Even now we did not give up
all hope of capturing Villers-Bretonneux. On April 4, we made another
attempt to drive the enemy from the village. The first reports of the
progress of our attack on that day were very promising, but the next day
brought a reverse and disillusionment at this point.

Amiens remained in the
hands of the enemy, and was subjected to a long-range bombardment which
certainly disturbed this traffic artery of our foe but could not cut it.